


Screaming Six Feet Under

by Greenninjagal



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: All my knowledge of the FBI comes from Criminal Minds, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst with a Happy Ending, Buried Alive, Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Hurt Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Hurt Morality | Patton Sanders, Kidnapping, Logan and Remy are FBI agents, M/M, Orange is fucked up guys, Patton is a catboy confirmed, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:08:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: “CLAY, PLEASE!” Virgil screams, “CLAY!”He gasps for air, his head rings, his vision swims.“CLAY!” Virgil begs, and another shovel scoop drops unceremoniously on him, practically down his throat. He spits it out, coughing all the way. The dirt rubs around his waist, inching down the band of his jeans, and teasing the his soft skin under his shirt andhe can’t move his legs anymore not even a little oh god oh fuck oh he’s being buried-***Aka Virgil gets buried alive by a serial killer, Remus is too smart for his own good, and there's absolutely no one left behind to miss Patton if he dies.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Sleep | Remy Sanders
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Screaming Six Feet Under

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowling-guistical (Hit_or_Mish)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hit_or_Mish/gifts).



> Hey Mish, remember that AU I swore I wasn't gonna write? Yeah, this is all on you now.
> 
> Its my birthday and this year i decided to gift myself your tears.
> 
> >:3 enjoy!

When he comes to, the world is blurry and muted. There’s a ringing in his ears that he thinks shouldn’t be there, isn’t right, isn’t _normal._ His head pounds like a drum, and every pump of his heart sends sparklers through the back of his eyelids. His body is heavy and achy- like he fell asleep on the couch, on the floor, at his desk again and has finally fucked up his spine enough to cut off all the blood flow to his outer limbs.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. His brain feels startlingly empty, startling fuzzy and cotton filled. Nausea swells over him like a tidal wave when he tries to think  _ anything at all  _ and it has the back of his throat tasting like the inside of his stomach and burning like it, too. His skull thrums with pain, and he lets out a low groan when he tries to… tries to…

There’s something in his mouth; Virgil chokes on it as he tries to breathe in, as he tries to push it out, as he tries to move his tongue at all. There’s something in his mouth, something that tastes like wet cotton, something large and it’s kept in his jaw by a string or a cloth that’s wrapped so tightly around his head, it cuts into the area where his lips meet on either side. Whatever it is in his mouth brushes his uvula when he tries to scream and his whole body lurches with need to vomit. The world around him is dark and blurry and it takes Virgil’s panicked mind another fragile second to realize that it’s because there’s a burlap sack over his head blocking out any source of light.

Memories flash in his mind, like jagged pieces of a puzzle that shreds his consciousness with terror.

He remembers- he thinks he remembers digging the pen under the wooden piece that had nailed the door closed, leveraging it up with all his might and managing to get it loose enough to kick off. He remembers the giddy relief of tearing open the front door, of feeling the fresh air, of managing to  _ get out get out get out.  _ He remembers the sound of the plate shattering behind him and Virgil had sprinted out the door with pure adrenalin fueling him.

He’d gotten out. He’d made it down the street. 

He had grabbed the first person he’d seen, an elderly man who’d been trimming his bushes and Virgil remembers sobbing in relief when he found the guy, crying so hard that he couldn’t actually get the words out-

Then there had been hands on his shoulders, heavy thick hands that could have so easily crushed his windpipe. Clay had caught up and he had told the confused man that Virgil was his deranged little brother, who had forgotten his medication that morning and was having an episode.

_ “If you don’t play along,”  _ Clay had whispered in Virgil’s ear. _ “I’ll kill him, and it will be all your fault.” _

Clay had dragged him back to that house and he’d been so calm, had been smiling, had been soft and quiet and-

And Virgil violently tries to move his limbs, any of them. There’s a sob in his throat that he can’t out around the sock in his mouth and the gag keeping him from spitting it out, the bag is tightened around his neck with some type of cloth strip that’s cutting into his throat enough to match the bruises that Clay had given him with those hands of his once the doors had been locked again and they were in the basement where the soundproof padding kept the neighbors unaware.

Clay used duck tape; Virgil can feel the way it grips his bare wrists and holds onto his shirt and keeps his arms crossed like an Egyptian mummy over his chest, too tight, too constricting, too much. His lungs scream for air he can’t give them as he thrashes. His legs are bound up too, from just below his knees all the way to his ankles, and no amount of kicking or weight throwing gets them to loosen any. 

Virgil bites down on the sock in his mouth just to keep himself from choking again. He can feel his cheeks soaking with his tears, irritating the skin all the way down his neck, where his shirt collar is so very accepting.

((He doesn’t remember how long it’s been since he’s changed shirts. Everything is foggy-- He’d picked it off the ground in his room after the argument, and wore it to the bar, and everything is a blur from there-- How many days had it been in that house, with Virgil clawing at the walls and him passing out between punishments? Did anyone even know he’d been missing?))   
  
(((Is there anyone to care?)))

He’s tied up like a worm on a string, trapped and hopeless without any way to defend himself, without any way to protect himself-- Clay likes knives, Virgil’s brain whispers. Clay likes knives and it would be so easy to drive one directly into his stomach and disembowel him when he can’t move his arms or legs or body.

Except that he’s being dragged, he realizes. He can feel the ground under him moving, dirt piling up and slipping into his pants, rocks, tearing at his thighs, the branches stabbing at his back. There’s a rope or something around his waist and under his arms held in place by his duck tape restraints and the tether digs into his skin roughly, peeling away layers with every tug.

Virgil struggles against the pull, against the bonds, against everything. He’s  _ outside. _

He can  _ escape. _

The rope yanks on him again, and Virgil feels very distinctly like he was hiemliched. If he throws up now it’s only going to kill him; there’s no place for anything to come out of his throat, barely enough for air to get down it. He’s crying and his lungs are screaming in a way that his brain can’t ignore: the dizzying lack of oxygen and the all consuming darkness turn him inside out. The cotton in his mouth makes whatever noises he’s creating sound pitifully quiet. He thinks that even his loudest scream would only come out as a whimper. 

“Knock that off,” comes the sharp tone, the familiar tone, the dangerous tone. Virgil squeezes his eyes closed, and bites down on the sock as hard as he can to keep himself from screaming. A rock clips the back of his head, a branch drives into his spine and rolls under his body without a care in the world.

The bruises over his body cry out: the ring around his neck, his ribcage and his wrists that the tape aggravates every time he tries to breathe, his cheek is still swollen from the punch that had sent him crashing down the basement stairs the first time he realized what had happened to him. 

((He’d been stupid. Of course he’d been stupid. Janus  _ always  _ makes him stupid.))

The rope goes slack and Virgil lunges with all his might in the opposite direction, landing hard on log or something, that nearly knocks the precious little breath out of him. He struggles away, like a deranged overgrown snake with none of the grace and all of the desperation, but before he can make it more than a few inches a hand grabs him by his head, by his hair through the bag, fingers clumping roughly in his greasy bangs and drags him back.

Virgil’s back slams against something- he thinks it might be a tree, but his brain is frazzled and fuzzy and he can’t string together more than two thoughts without the blind terror cutting in. His head rings.

He can’t hear anything around him- he can’t, he can’t defend himself, he doesn’t know where he is doesn’t know where Clay is and-

Then he feels the pinching around his neck loosen and the bag comes off his head.

It’s  _ bright.  _ Virgil can’t help but scream through the gag. The world is flushed and vibrant and it’s like seeing the sun for the first time in days. It  _ burns,  _ like driving white hot pokers into his eyes, like tilting his head back and letting embers of coal drop onto his eyeballs, like being burned alive starting with his eyes.

He blinks frantically, sobbing because of all the things that Clays done to him,  _ this  _ is one of the worst and he doesn’t even think that Clay  _ knows.  _

He’s in a forest-- deep in a forest. He can make out the blurs of endless gnarled lines that might be trees, the broken branches, the logs, the leaf matted floor and the partially soaked earth from the rain days ago. Virgil doesn't… he doesn’t… his brain struggles to remember the geography of home and he doesn’t remember there being any type of forest anywhere near the city he lives in. 

He doesn’t remember the drive out here, he doesn’t remember how long he’s been unconscious and how far away that Clay took him. The police… the police won’t look outside state boundaries, will they? If Clay took him so far that they crossed the state Virgil’s never going to be found… he’s never going to get back home, he’s never going to see Janus again and he’s never going to get to take back those things he said because Janus definitely hates him now and he’s always going to because Virgil’s tongue had moved faster than his brain and, and, and.

And Clay is crouching right in front of him, one arm over his knees, the other precariously balancing a shovel over his shoulders as he stares at Virgil with an expression on his face that has Virgil’s heart rabbiting.

He doesn’t look like the stranger that Virgil had met at that bar that night: there’s no trace of the clumsy whiskey smile, the alcohol boosted confidence and flushed face as he stumbled over his words calling Virgil pretty and asking if he could pay for Virgil’s next drink. His hair is sweat stained, his orange tank top soaked from the hike--  _ oh god it was a hike out here and Virgil doesn’t even know where--  _ His boots have mud on them, and he looks miffed, like this is an unfortunate inconvenience and Virgil can feel his stomach acids climbing up his esophagus like spiders trying to escape. 

That night in the amber lighting of the bar, Clay had looked attractive to Virgil: taller, built, with a buzz cut that spoke of blunt confrontation and no double meanings or prowess at subterfuge. Virgil’s eyes had been drawn to him immediately. Of course they had. Clay had been the furthest thing from Janus that he could have imagined.

He  _ was  _ the furthest thing, even when that façade had been striped away and he had been revealed to be an entirely different person under it. Where Janus’s smile was charming, Clay’s was slimy; where Janus’s laugh made Virgil’s heart thud, Clay’s made him want to run; where Janus had looked at him with disappointment because Virgil isn’t a toy that he can wind up, Clay is looking at him with annoyance that quickly leads to a tantrum that  _ breaks toys _ .

“Virgil,” Clay says, and Virgil is immediately aware of how quiet the rest of the world is: no chirping birds, no scuttling of squirrels, no breeze in the trees. It’s silent enough that Virgil’s muffled gasps around his gag sound like raging thunder and his soul screeches at the information. 

“I’m going to take off your gag, now,” Clay says, like he’s doing Virgil some grand favor, like he isn’t the one that crammed the sock in Virgil’s mouth in the first place. “When I do you’re going to apologize.”

_ Apologize.  _ Virgil wants to scream, but his lungs wheeze instead, tightening like the duck tape around him is actually a snake twisting around its prey before it swallows him whole. His skin feels too small, his brain is incoherent except for those words that are so,  _ so loud.  _

_ Apologize.  _

Clay reaches forward with his free hand, and Virgil flinches to the side, flinches away because the last time  _ Clay had wrapped his hands around Virgil’s throat and squeeeeeezed--  _ Clay’s fingers hook the top of the cloth ribbon that is tied around his mouth and leverages it downwards, tearing at the groves of his lips that might be bleeding, slipping it over his chin and then letting it fall loosely to Virgil’s neck. Then he uses his thumb and index finger to pluck the grey fabric sock from between Virgil’s lips and slowly, slowly,  _ slowly,  _ drag the sopping mass from Virgil’s mouth, enjoying how Virgil sobs and saliva slips down his chin. He tosses the sock over his shoulder without a care, like he has a million other pairs, like he’ll never miss that one, like no one will ever come across it again and wonder what a single sock was doing out in the middle of this forest. 

“Well?” Clay asks.

“Fu...ck… you,” Virgil chokes hoarsely because even without the sock blocking the path to his lungs he can’t seem to get a deep enough breath. The tears in his eyes burn, and he can feel the hairs of the sock on his tongue and he wants to wake up from this nightmare now.

Clay grabs him by his neck with his one hand, digging his thick fingers and sharp nails into the soft flesh under his jaw. “Last chance.”

“There’s… there’s something...  _ fucking  _ … wrong with you,” Virgil sobs. His eyes burn from tears and panic and the horror that this has happened, that this  _ is  _ happening and that it’s happening to him.

He’d been good- he’d been  _ smart-  _ he’d done everything he was supposed to, right? He’d always been polite to the janitors, the cleaners, the repairmen and the bus drivers. He gave money to the poor when he could spare it, remembered his friend’s birthdays, and listened when other people needed to rant to someone- he’s a  _ good person. Why was this happening to him? _

Virgil barely ever left his house to start with. He never would have gone home with Clay if … if- He never would have-

Clay’s hand drops from around him and Virgil’s entire body falls back against the tree. He can’t see for all the tears on his face and he can’t brush them away because his hands are tied up and he can barely hear Clay getting up,  _ wait please no don’t leave him here in the middle of the forest like this-- _

Virgil babbles out something that doesn’t even sound like words anymore in his terror. Clay towers over him casting a shadow that’s three times a lighter shade than the expression on his face. Virgil gasps for air and his ribs screech and Clay’s feet shift so that they’re perpendicular to Virgil,  _ why is he-? _

Virgil realizes just a moment too late that the shovel is swinging towards his head, not that it matters. 

Stars explode across his vision and every single thought shatters like stained glass inside his skull. His body goes careening to the side so hard that he bites his tongue. The world spins, it whirls, it buzzes and fizzes and Virgil’s face is pressed into the earth crushing his left shoulder and when he blinks he’s being hoisted up by the collar of his shirt and that rope around his waist.

Virgil’s vision swims. He thinks he says something more, thinks he cries, thinks he goes silent, but time slips between his fingers even as he struggles to focus on something,  _ anything.  _ His feet are dragging on the ground, Virgil’s chin digs into his collarbone, nestled between his twisted wrists, as his eyes flutter to catch snapshots of what Clay’s doing: he’s being moved more, Clay dropped the shovel somewhere beyond the two of them, the ground here is looser as if it’s just been moved recently, the sun is too bright and too far away, the ground is gone from under him-

Clay huffs, his warm breath on Virgil’s neck in a way that makes everything hair on his body stand on edge. That’s the only warning he gets, before Clay  _ drops him and Virgil falls. _

His head slams into something, and Virgil’s vision flickers out before he can figure out what it is.

When he opens his eyes again, there’s something thick and heavy running over his head, like... water but sticky? He doesn’t… he can’t… He blinks. His vision is blurry in his left eye from something more than just the black eye and he thinks that his wrists are red, too. Why are they red…? Something pours over his head, like rain except that its dirt and Virgil screams.

Because he’s in a hole, a standing hole that fits his body almost perfectly. He has enough room to wriggle an inch or three to either side, and he can push forward and backward just barely an inch more than that. He’s never been claustrophobic before, but Virgil finds his lung shrieking at the tightness of the fit, at the taste of dirt in his mouth mixing with the blood, at the way he looks up and sees the walls extend to nearly a foot over his head.

The scoop of a shovel appears in the opening of the hole and Virgil’s eyes widen as he watches it turn ever-so-slowly and dump a clump of dirt down on him.

He screams and throws himself to the side as much as he can. Dirt rains down on his head, getting down his shirt, in his mouth, in his hair and pooling in the bottom of the hole, until his shoes are completely covered. 

“FUCK! FUCK NO!” Virgil spits. He yanks against his bonds, twisting and thrashing against the duck tape at his wrists around his chest, at his legs. “YOU FUCKER! HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!”

Another piles of dirt rains on him, and Virgil gulps for air because his lungs are burning. His back slams against the wall, and he tears at the bonds, pulls at the bonds with all his might, he folds over himself to try to bite at the silver bands over his wrists, but Clay must have wrapped his wrists alone ten times. 

“HELP!” Virgil screams, up at the square of light over him, but there’s only another shovel of dirt. He thinks that he can hear humming, a carefree mindless repetition of a pop song Virgil thought he heard being played on the radio last week. “FUCK YOU!”

The dirt presses around his shins, around his knees. Virgil frantically tries to jump, to kick, to shift and scoot and keep the dirt loose while he gnaws on the tape, but it’s already so compact, it’s already so hard with his calves wrapped up, it’s already so hard to  _ stand _ . He can feel the dirt inside his shoes, as he wriggles his toes. There’s blood in his mouth, blood trailing down the side of his face forcing one of his eyes closed, blood over his hands and his neck. His head pounds and if Virgil moves too fast he thinks he might pass out and  _ he can’t pass out again please he can’t-- _

Dirt pours on him again, a rock clipping his shoulder and settling next to his thigh. His knees dig into the other wall of his… his  _ gra- _

“CLAY, PLEASE!” Virgil screams, “CLAY!”

He gasps for air, his head rings, his vision swims.

“CLAY!” He begs, and another shovel scoop drops unceremoniously on him, practically down his throat. He spits it out, coughing all the way. The dirt rubs around his waist, inching down the band of his jeans, and teasing the his soft skin under his shirt and  _ he can’t move his legs anymore not even a little oh god oh fuck oh he’s being buried- _

“Clay! I’m sorry!” Virgil sobs, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please stop- please don’t do this!” 

His tears are mixing with his blood. Another rock tumbles down the hole, landing next to Virgil’s rib, with sharp edges but he can’t...he can’t reach it because the wall prevents him from bending enough to reach it.

“Clay, I swear I won’t do it again! I won’t leave you!” Virgil babbles. “CLAY YOU FUCKER LISTEN TO ME! I SAID I’M SORRY! PLEASE!” 

He spits out more dirt, but he thinks he swallowed some, he thinks that the dirt is up to his folded elbows, he thinks that Clay is still humming along and that if he was worried about someone stumbling along the two of them he would have gagged Virgil again before he tossed him in this hole. 

He’s stomach lurches and he feels his throat burn with the acids as he sobs. His shirt collar is soaked and he wriggles but there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to move, the dirt is so tight around his legs he can’t feel his feet anymore. 

Something falls into the hole- landing not more than a few inches from Virgil’s hands, large enough to be a rock, but its  _ not  _ and Virgil stupidly stares at it for a heartbeat, a second, an eternity. 

_ It’s a phone.  _

Clay tossed a phone in the pit with him and Virgil’s lungs are collapsing in on himself because that phone case is not-- it’s not his black and purple one and it’s not Clay’s camo and orange one and that means it’s  _ someone else’s and that person doesn’t need it anymore.  _ The next second it’s buried and Virgil can taste blood in his mouth.

“Clay, Clay!  _ Please _ , I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do...whatever... you want... me to do...I swear,” Virgil’s chokes out. “Please... I’m sorry… I’m sorry… don’t do this, please,  _ stop.”  _

The dirt piles around his neck, and he has to tilt his head back just to make sure that he can still breathe. His lungs feel tight, too small, too weak, even as he begs them to keep working desperately. His fingers stretch as far as they can go, but Clay buries them easily.

“Clay...I’ll do... anything...you want... _ please… _ ” Virgil whimpers because he  _ means it _ . He means it so much and it makes something deep in his shatter. He’ll follow Clay home like a little lost puppy, let Clay use him however he wants, he’ll stay in that horrid house until he dies of old age, he’ll help Clay  _ take someone else and kill them if it means that Clay will put down the shovel.  _ “P-please!”

Virgil stares at the opening above him, his vision swimming in and out of focus. The earth around him presses on his body, crushing his limbs and cementing them in place and his brain thinks of all those people buried in the ashes of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii forever encased in an unyielding embrace. The sun dances among the tree branches so far out of reach like it's laughing at him.

The shovel doesn’t appear again.

Virgil’s heart beats in his throat. “C...Clay?”

There’s a huff from so far above him. A thud.

And then a shadow appears over him, again and Virgil flinches expecting the rain of soil over his face.

Clay clicks his tongue, and sighs, like Virgil is being difficult, “Really, Virgil?”

Virgil blinks and chances a look up at him.

He’s towering over the hole, eclipsing the sun with his bulky form. He’s holding something in his hands, something small and rectangular and Clay smiles with all his teeth.

“Say Cheese.”

There’s a brilliant white flash that has Virgil’s eyes burning, that has his lungs wailing, that has his body thrashing without any success. He screams wordlessly as Clay disappears out of his view laughing that same laugh that had first drawn Virgil to him. 

_ “CLAY!”  _ He bawls. 

The shovel appears a second later through Virgil’s tears and it very carefully sprinkles dirt around Virgil’s head, building up the area around him as he struggles meaninglessly. He can feel it in his ears, in his hair, if he yanks his neck too far he gets a mouth full. His eyes burn where it sprinkles in them and he can’t wipe it away.

Clay is laughing, Virgil can hear him laughing as the shovel disappears for another load. Virgil coughs so hard he vomits into his mouth. The walls around him build up with dirt at slants so that at any moment they can cave in and cover him completely, and Clay takes his time doing it, appearing every so often just to look at him with that smile. Virgil’s lungs shred themselves trying to get oxygen when Virgil’s own arms are compressed to his ribcage; he thinks he can feel his ribs groaning, moaning, croaking, and cracking with every second.

Some dirt tumbles down the incline scattering across his face, filling his mouth despite him frantically spitting it out. Clay pauses to watch him, leaning over the hole and resting his arms on the top of his shovel. He’s barely sweating, his auburn hair is glistening in the sunlight like a halo, his eyes are blown wide with excitement. 

Virgil’s not sure what’s the blood or the tears, or the mud. He’s not sure what he’s wheezing out either: pleas, begging, calls for help-- he thinks he might be calling for Janus,  _ please, Janus I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was stupid and you’re never going to know that I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth.  _

Clay sighs dreamily and rocks back on his feet, picking up the shovel again.

The next scoop is larger than the others, the biggest Clay’s gotten, and it hovers over the mouth of the hole, enough to fill it all the way to the top. Virgil’s vision blurs again and he thrashes as much as he can, tearing shredding, wriggling, more of an animal than a human and his fragile lungs shudder and cave.

“You should have listened to me the first time, Virgil,” Clay says.

Virgil gasps for air that his lungs won’t give him and Clay dumps the last bit of dirt over his head, effectively blocking out the sun and topping off Virgil’s unmarked grave with him still screaming in it.


End file.
